Russian Drone Operators Received Booby-Trapped FPV Goggles

In an incident resonant of the Israeli “pager attacks” on Hezbollah, a batch of video glasses for use by drone operators provided by an anonymous supplier in response to a request by Russian volunteers, was found to be booby-trapped. Each contained a plastic explosives charge designed to detonate when the devices were switched on.

The Russian state news agency TASS first reported the incident on Friday. It says it was informed of the attempt by Igor Potapov, an official representative of JSC NPP which develops and supplies electronic warfare equipment to Russian forces, particularly units operating in the so-called “special military operation.”

Popatov said: “A batch of Skyzone Cobra X v4 FPV glasses was transferred by a person named Roman via humanitarian aid. When the glasses were turned on, they detonated and exploded. When they opened the batch, they found plastic explosives in all of the products.”

The Chinese Skyzone company specializes in producing electronic equipment needed to control first-person view (FPV) drones. Skyzone’s Cobra X v4 consists of a wraparound headset containing a 5.8 gigahertz 48 channel “Steadyview” receiver/transmitter with the drone’s generated images displayed on its integral high resolution LCD screen. It has become a favorite among both military and civilian users because of the quality and stability of its images and signal control.

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Popatov said the incident emphasized the need for military personnel to be vigilant when receiving humanitarian aid from unknown sources:

“… humanitarian aid always requires verification if it is provided by new, unfamiliar individuals. We have quite a lot of people involved in humanitarian aid; they are all quite well-known. And when some benefactor suddenly appears with a desire to help – this is, of course, wonderful, but should always be verified.”

The pro-Kremlin milblogger “RaZved DoZor” posted images of the booby-trapped Cobra goggles being broken down to reveal the explosive charge and detonator concealed in a plastic box inside the goggles.

From those images, it can be estimated that the device contained around 15 grams (half an ounce) of plastic explosive positioned under the casing near the goggle’s cooling fan right by the wearer’s temple. If detonated while the device was being worn, the user would almost certainly be killed and any nearby personnel injured.

None of the reports gave details on how the booby traps were discovered. As the RaZved DoZor images show, the goggles would have to be completely taken apart to find the bomb. Unless suspicions about the source of the “donation” led to a closer than normal inspection of the consignment, there is some speculation that one of the booby-trapped devices may have activated in use.